Points of Light and Reason: New Moon
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: A collection of Edward POV pieces through New Moon.
1. Unexpected Consequences

_**Birthday Midnight- Tuesday, the 13th**_

* * *

He comes back during the middle of the night, when Bella is too deeply asleep to wake for being moved. He has to. He's spent hours thinking about studying the stitches on her arm, perfectly done by the unwavering hands of Carlisle. And wrong and right.

He has to go home. Because of Jasper. Because of his family.  
He can't hide here. He doesn't deserve even that tonight.

* * *

The house is as silent as though a bomb had gone off in the center of it.  
There are still shards of piano on the diadem, even if the larger pieces are already gone.

* * *

He's nearly past the second floor when her door opens, and he knows she coming. He can't miss it. Her coming or what she's seeing. It's been shuddering back and forth since he got within range. He doesn't have to meet her eyes to know she's leaving, to see the guilt and desperation and fear. But still he watches the hesitation like she can't look away from Jasper even that long yet.

They're leaving. They have to. Destination unknown. Return time unknown.

Edward stood there on the steps, not touching anything, not even putting his hands in his pockets. He may have jumped in front of Bella and growled viciously to protect her, even from them, he could and would do it again in this second, but he's not even angry. This is all his fault. No matter what Jasper or Alice or anyone in the house is thinking now. All of this is at his feet, and he knows it, and the future in her head is haywire. Hers. His. Jasper's. All of them.

There are options they both see, wordless, in their own world, stuck between stairs and doors and their heads. Options that haven't been made yet, choices that are flickered chances, each of them a road inside of Alice with destinations.

"You can't," she says, the smallest whisper no one else would get.

And he says, without coming any closer, without letting even her in. "Be safe."


	2. Wrong and Right

_**The First Day/Night After The Birthday - Wednesday, the 14th**_

* * *

The irony was double fold - the day after when Edward could hardly look at Bella, and he had refused to stay the night with her, forced upon her the inability to plead for it specifically because Charlie was in the room with them, and yet couldn't bring himself to leave the area of her house.

His car parked a few streets over, from leaving being there after her work shift as promised. He'd managed to tell her no. Managed to drive only the streets away. But then he'd ended up perched in a tree, refusing to even look at her wide-open open window, listening to the beat of her heart, the way she fretted through her sleep.

* * *

He was supposed to protect her.

He promised. He promised he'd stay as long as it was the best thing for her. But because of him, she'd been endangered. Tortured. And attacked. First by others of their kind, and now by his own family. Broken legs and blood transfusions and stitches. All for his selfishness. Even when he could not stop wanting to kill her himself.

And Jasper. Jasper and Alice.

They were gone.

And his family.

He was supposed to protect them, too.

_Too_- is so grossly wrong. As though it comes second. As though he hadn't had this task mastered for almost a century before her. As though he hasn't always made sure. That they were safe. That no one knew. That there wasn't any more risk than their lies and possible slips. They could, metaphorically, breathe and enjoy their life.

That they could always come home without fear.

And he'd broken that even - the peace of their home.

The one place where they didn't have to lie or feel tempted.

* * *

Bella whispered his name in her sleep and Edward buried his face in his arms.

Wrong and right.

_Wrong and right._

**Wrong and right.**

If he kept saying it, kept thinking it, kept refusing to let anything else hold sway. He could figure out what he had to do now. How he could undo all the wrong he'd done. How he could protect all of them. How to do the right thing this time.


	3. Not with a Whimper

_**Decision times - Thursday, 14th Morning**_

* * *

When he decides,

It's stunning in its simplicity.  
And overpowering in it's magnitude.

He knows he should have done this long ago, and why he didn't, but there's almost no feeling to the words at all, an hour later, when he finally says them. Standing only a foot inside his house, the door just having latched itself by centrifugal force, saying with full awareness they'll all hear him.

**"We're leaving Forks."**


	4. But With a Bang

_**Setting: **Two Days Post Ithaca Leaving/One Day Post Break-Up. _

* * *

Edward has told many lies in his life.

_You . . . don't . . . want . . . me?_

No.

More lies than the number of days he's been whatever state of living this is.

_I've let this go on too long. _

_You're no good for me, Bella. _

Lying doesn't bother him by and large. He doesn't lose time on it ever.

_And I'll make you a promise in return._

I promise this is the last time you'll see me.

I won't put through anything like this again.

Because he doesn't care about the people he's lying to.

_You can go on with your life  
without any inference from me._

_It will be as though I never existed._


	5. A New Calling

_**November into December, 2005 **_

He knows the job he's assigned himself to.  
(_Tracking down his prey and protecting his mate._)

At least hypothetically. Logically.  
(_To kill only if it's necessary for her survival._)

It is locked in his mind.  
(_The only focus of every empty second._)

* * *

How James did it. For centuries.  
They merciless stalking of his toys.

How _Victoria_ might.

_Well, I suppose we should get on with it. _  
Every step recorded like a movie.  
A remorseless "How To" guide

with Bella's blood in every thought.

* * *

Their scents as unforgettable as the brown eyes that torment him whether his eyes are opened or closed now. He keeps them close, even Laurent, who'd slipped into the Denali's world, where his sister and brother still were. Scents in triplicate. Overlapping. Urging his every step onward across the United States.

(_you're killing Carlisle_)  
_I have a strong theory that we start to  
hallucinate if we haven't eaten for that long_

Carlisle once said. (_How could there not be more for one such as Edward?_)

Before he knew it involved a Milliways time-loop.  
Edward's not sure he'd been wrong. (_I could still help_)

He sees her now. In flashes;

His imagination. Her Memory. His ghost.

* * *

_Do you swear you won't leave me?_

**I swear. **

_I'll be right here as long as you need me._

The swing of her hair. The sound of her laugh.

The scent of strawberries tangling up his thoughts.

Unsubstantial wisps gone when he looks to the spot.


	6. Rio

_**Setting: Early to Mid December, 2005**_

* * *

He hasn't eaten in weeks. Months. Avoids people, because while gold can be passed off as a trick of light or a passing fancy of imagination, nothing outside of nature has purely **black** eyes. Except predators. There is no disguise. From the **blackness.**The purple shadows deepening beneath them. The urge for hunger, a hammering, clattering, shattering, ceaseless battering ram at the door of his mind louder than the pause before every sane thought, is ignorable.

* * *

He _broke_ the world as he knew it. What is a small inconvenience to that.  
He throws the fierce thirst into his steps, his need to find Victoria.  
He needs to put as much distance from his words as possible.  
To keep _her _safe; the last vestige of his life.

* * *

He starts back in the west

Tracing her across borderless reaches.

Land knows no dividing lines, animals either.

The laws of nature are simple; swift.

The Hunt. The Kill. _Prey_. **Predator**.

Man is not in the equation at all.

He is expendable.

Refuse.

Forgotten in the wind.

Lost like time keeps becoming.

The last he said one single word to his family

days ago ?

No, weeks. Too.

But -

They know when he'll be back now.  
It's why he doesn't have to stop.  
He can focus.

On this last task.

Before he'll go home.  
Surrender to -

survival

Their Perfectly Matched Love  
and cookie cutter houses

and need; demands

**eternally unequal promises**

_play_ the

silent oldest _child_-genius  
cold fingers at the _keys_  
_beautiful_ Botticelli angel  
legendary _studious _boy

heart untouchable

undeserving

in world where **nothing matters**

where he knows his place - _his worth_.

He had her in Texas.

He lost her in the middle.

Mexico. Argentina. Panama.

Following the thinnest trail to Brazil.

She never made to Rio, he concludes

right around realizing he can't leave it.


	7. Not the Blackest Lie

_**Setting: Mid-December, 2005**_

* * *

__  
Once upon a time he said, _You are my life._

And it only makes sense, in a room where Victoria never was, where he hasn't moved once in over three days, that his last words to Bella were, not the blackest lie, but the most golden truth

_It will be as if I'd never existed._


	8. Unparalleled Indeed

_**2005, Mid-March**_  
The name announced to an explosion of whispers.

It was a known name, in a world with a long memory. The name was a legend, a myth, a warning. A hazard about what happens to the weak. To the meek who have no place in this world.

And its followers - _the name's _fallen - have never dared to touch this doorstep.

* * *

Edward's steps were not specifically slow or measured.

They were blank, bland, only the necessary locomotion that would bring him to the man standing in the middle of the gauche meeting hall. Before the trio of risen thrones which back lit him in golden frame. With his hands clasped together, staring down at him, entranced, as though through him as Edward made the walk, toward that hand held out.

"This _is_an unparalleled surprise."

Even the century of unmitigated hatred for the face before him hardly registered as feeling inside of Edward now. He said nothing, black eyes staring only, emptily, exhaustedly, at the hand extended toward him. As the murmurs rose and died away.

There was no choice in it. No saying no. The message was clear, even not in those fingers or on that face. The man before him would find a way, whether it looked congenial, or accidental, or had to be while he was held down under order.

It is his ticket to hell. To the release from one oblivion to another.  
Edward reached out and took the infinitely, older hand in his.

* * *

His resolve for what he wants is solvent enough that he won't hesitate.

He won't break the grasp of the hand in his, won't react where a nausea that isn't physically possible crashes on him, won't look away from those red eyes, watching every precious memory and secret stolen from him in the hands of the worst devil he's ever heard of.

It is the greatest betrayal whatever he has in lieu of a soul might hold. Their lives. Their memories. Their secrets. Every single one of them. At his disposal. At his keeping. Their trust. Their faith. On the altar of the greatest malevolence that he might be granted one single thing he has left to want.

There are so many reasons those red eyes widen.  
He sees them all. Carlisle. Himself. Alice. Jasper.  
Power. Revenge. Intrigue. Amusement.

"Unparalleled _indeed_."

"What is, Aro? What does this boy want?"  
The caustic voice of Caius, sitting canted in his chair.

They watched themselves, hands locked as one, in a loop of thought and memory flickering between them. And Aro smiled, enchanted and enthralled, more than rebuffed or concerned,

"He's come to request that we end his life."


	9. Of Wax, and Wings

He can smell the boy before he walks in.  
Young, powdered and perfumed, humming bird heart.

It's annoying when he stops in his door, black eyes landing on the child. Slim build, no more than, perhaps, eight, nine, at the most. Golden haired-head bowed over something in his hands, and (when Edward, frustrated at this newest interruption, uttered, "What are you doing here?" making his small head snap up) bright blue eyes.

"I was-I was-"

Listen to his heart go. A mini-marching band.  
Edward grit his teeth, his fists tightening. "Yes."

He swallowed, hands tight on whatever the thing was he was holding. "I'm didn't mean- I got lost. The man, the blonde one?, told me to wait here. He said you'd know what to do with me, but-"

Edward almost groaned out loud.  
"_Get out_," is too small.

"-I didn't break it. I just found it here. I'm sorry."

He's only seeing it now. Even starved his vision is immaculate. It's an oddly shaped object in those tiny hands. An odd arrangement of feathers. Then, he sees it actually more defined: wings. Except one of them is broken, right along the line in the center where only one side had enough of the thick yellow substance.

The message is too easy.

**"Get. Out."**is a black growl this time.

He's surprised enough that the child, who's heart hammered suddenly as he cried out, didn't curl up into a ball behind the setee he was sitting on. Edward was next to him an instant later, pulling him up none too kindly up. Listening to the clatter of shoes and more on the floor right next to him, everything to the terrified squeal of his fearful thoughts.

"Leave." Pushing him to the door with a hard shove.  
It'll probably leave bruising, both actions.

They boy almost toppled with the force, but he ran. Smart enough and Edward was left scowling at the artifact on the floor near his feet. Raising a foot and stomping the thing into shards between his shoe and the floor. Again. And again. Before staring at the now further broken pieces on the floor.

Feathers and wax. If it lacked class, now it lacked a defined shape. But he wouldn't forget it. Or the message it sent. A broke set of wings where the wax was melted away. Daedalus. Craftsman or magician, it did not matter, who managed to outwit the Great King of Crete and fly, on wings of leather and feathers and wax, to his freedom.

And it was his son, not him, who perished for it.


	10. Our Guest

"Regretfully, we must decline your request."

* * *

The room had only eight people. There are no teeming crowds this time.  
This is not the throne room. It's a salon. A very private one. And specific.

"You must try to understand, you are _very_ young and while this tragic-"

The walls are covered with long, fringed hangings. The couches are gilded, divan and settee, matching chairs and ottomans. The inner balcony rails and the tables made of the same materials. Everything dressed in a decor of maroons, blacks, and silvers.

"-event has surely rocked your world, given time, you will see that it, too, is only an event."

The room is made to feel careless opulent. Lies. Every piece was painstakingly picked.  
Each one was immediately replaced with its exact duplicate after _mistakes_.  
Lies. Like the expectation of humility to be invited here. To be honored.

"It would be very _wasteful_ to act rashly now."

There is no regret in the statement granted him.  
There is, under it, a web of spider-like glee.  
In those red eyes that prevaricate.

Knowing he can hear.

* * *

"Surely, you can see," Aro continued onward, flowing glide of movement and symphony of sound. "Marcus, here, is our own prime example of the astounding capacity our kind has to survive the worst of travesties and continue on for not only years, but centuries."

He'd stood there, still as a stone through the delivery.  
Watched by guards and wives and The Three.  
Thoughts exploding, plans expanding.  
Speech unrequired in lecture.  
Until this allusion.

Edward scoffed.

* * *

The entire room went still. Conversation silenced. Games ceased. Waiting. Watching.

Edward's glance between Marcus and Aro was evident of his thoughts. Marcus was very little more alive than the furniture was. A dog chained so long to its blackness and its sentence of immortality and usefulness that he'd forgotten what life ever held.

Aro's fingers laced together. He rose from his seat and walked forward. Such a fluid grace that few others in their entire world could ever match. Alice, whose every shift was a dance, would have seemed a clumsy child next to it.

"We do hope you will consider remaining with us during this troubling time. There is room for you here, among us. All of your needs and wants will be attended to. Your presence here would prove easily to be quite...invaluable. Beyond measure or memory or reward."

Several of those words are almost pauses.

And Edward's look, if the last time was exasperated at the expanse of the mendacity, is unbridled and exhausted disgust. Aro already knows his thoughts. What he thought of their life and their ways. Of they, themselves. Their past actions with Carlisle. What he had planned if this happened.

The cold cordiality does not negate the black anger, when he gives the words back.

No ounce of fear. Deep rage and emptiness and mocking. "Regretfully, I must decline your offer."

"Ah, but, Edward, you could-" started as Aro's hands extended toward him. Both, as though to off a place for him to put one of his. But even in his starved state Edward had stepped back in perfect balance with the reach out. Not a reaction to an action. A reaction to the thought which gave birth to the action.

"I can see myself out."

A cloak rustled, steps darted forward. "Leave him be, Dmitri."  
Aro's voice. Direct. A winding coil of cool smoothness, slicing silence.

The insult and its sting not unfelt, from the words given to him, or the ones he gave back.  
"He is our guest, and, having broken none of our laws, he is still free to come and go as he pleases."


	11. Simplest of Holy Unforgranted's

_**Volterra, March 2005**_

* * *

He didn't care about the subtle threats.  
They only serve to prove his plan will work.

* * *

There are so many ways he could. He's been thinking them out since he bought the plane ticket in Rio. Volterra was the safest city in the world. From vampire attacks, that was. There were rules there. Their protection of the golden, secret city held since the Etruscans, was beyond manic. Innocent and beholden and _owned_. Immured. Never to question or be threatened.

It would take so little to bring that crashing down. A killing spree in the city where no one is allowed to feed. Walking into traffic or down the street, lifting cars over his head and throwing them into other ones. He could attack any one of the guards. He'd been charitable to ask first, and was livid in being refused. Placated. Invited. Forgiven.

His void thoughts winded blacker than night.  
And he knew what he had to do now.

What better way than flouting  
the cardinal rule of Volterra.

He'd go hunting.

* * *

It doesn't take long to find a highly populated area.  
To slide open doors to the silky, compartmentalized past.

This one is too young. That one is too old. There are children here. A sister running to hand off a purse. Affixing the time piece in a pocket watch. That one sounds annoying. She's walking a dog. They're obnoxiously affectionate. Tickets to a movie. The click of heels on the sidewalk. The squeal of wheels.

Too much thinking, too much thinking. The next one. Whoever walks out this door next.  
The knob twitches and he crosses the space in seconds. The world's pinprick of light gone.

The man bumps into him hard. Blonde hair and blue eyes. Like the last one.  
Everything in Edward froze as he stared. Black eyes with purple circles.

"Ragazzo! Fa attenzione a dove camini."

Locked perfectly still. He'd _promised_. No one else. Ever again. Never.  
What had this man ever done to deserve dying so that Edward could?  
What would Carlisle say, feel, when he found out about his last acts?  
He would have enough to live with without that on top of it.

When Aro wrote him gloating about his child's fall.

Divine providence did not keep Edward from snarling at him.  
The man startled back, terrified. And ran. Like an animal.

Leaving Edward alone on the street.

Alone. In Volterra. Alive. Still.

* * *

He wander only to find his feet having returned him to another of the Volturi's entrances. He was a wraith in the shadows. People parted way, whispered around him. This was the mark of what had become of The Stregone, what happened to his kind. Thoughts, words. It didn't matter which. He didn't care about them.

Refused to be fed again. Disgusted at the idea of any nourishment.  
He walked the walls of a room he had once only seen in shared memories.  
Still here. Still part and parcel of their dark and twisted subterranean world.

He needed a nonviolent means. His death would be violent, swift justice, metered out in only seconds. Torn and burned. But his making of it did not have to be. He could still be better than the monster's he took sanctuary and manipulated mercy from. And when it came to him, it seemed like a blessing.

The simplest of holy unforgranted's.

* * *

He picked the clock tower of Plazzo dei Priori. March 19th. St. Marcus Day.

Fifteen hundred years of celebration, of the vampire scourge removed from Volterra forever. He couldn't have picked what tomorrow would be, but the black irony was impossible to miss. They would be on even higher guard of anyone ruffling their careful veneers today.

And he was being watched incredibly closely now. Orders had been given.

He watched them milling. The people, rather than the guards. Sheep in red cloaks, with red scarves and red hats, holding red banners and flags, which all wove in the wind, like blood blanketing the sky when it would tear across the vibrant spring blue. They knew nothing of the lies they assumed.

They knew nothing of despair so deep that even miracles could not touch it, families and love could not heal it. They rang their noise makers, bought their street side food, laughter at their jokes and made fun of the past which ran blood under their feet every day.

In mere moments the clock tower would strike noon. The zenith of the sun. The midday.  
Edward peeled off the white shirt he'd been gifted and dropped it on the alley floor.  
He would be seen by a crowd of thousands. Unforgettably different. Alien.

His eyes closed as he listened to the clock beginning to chime. Soon it would all end.  
Soon the despair would be obliterated. Soon there would be no waiting.  
The greatest debate of his life would pass beyond even remembering.

It wasn't worth remembering. Who was right and who was wrong.

Only they were. His family. His mother. His brothers and sisters.  
The little time he'd had with Bella. The years spent with Carlisle.  
The miracle of Alice coming into his life when and how she had.  
To hope that their endless time to come would only be better.

The eleventh chime rung and he lifted his foot, stepping forward

- as, with violent force, he was slammed into.

* * *

Edward opened his eyes to meet the onslaught of his fate, the final promise of release - to two brown warm eyes, in a face that could never be forgotten. That was so perfectly imperfect no memory or art piece could have done it justice. Bella. Bella in his arms. Warm and wide-eyed. It was already over. So much faster than he'd expected.

So much more than he'd ever expected to be waiting for him here.  
Ever his angel in her life, challenging him, making him a better man.  
And now, she was here, too. Beyond the sunlight, beyond the pain.

"_Amazing_," he whispered. Amused, exquisite wonder.

Relieved to be - "Carlisle was right." - wrong.


	12. At 30,000 Feet

_**March 22, 2005 - Between Volterra & Forks**_

* * *

It hasn't been more than eight hours since he nearly walked in the sun and ended his life.

It hasn't been more than eight hours and the whole of his world has been rewritten again.

* * *

Even in the new clothes Alice bought him, leaving Italy for Forks, for their family, there is so much and so little actually taking place inside his head. As though the whole of his waking universe was fixated permanently and undeniably on the small, fragile girl curled up in his lap, willfully drinking caffeine to keep herself awake, staring at him, saying absolutely nothing. He'd nearly killed himself, and some far too large part of him, was, this moment here, willing still.

But these thoughts paused, hallowed and holy for her hands, when she was reaching up now and then to trace his face with her warm fingertips. Her brown eyes didn't always stay on him and he could remember, how beautiful they were, how silent, how frustrating it was not to know what she thought.

No, he knew what she thought. Especially when she wouldn't say anything.  
They'd drug her into all of this again. Alice had. Rose had. He had.

He was beyond any ability to stop himself from touching her.  
Her cheeks, her hands, her hair, to holding her close.  
Even her scent, _overpowering_, couldn't touch him.

It would all end sooner or later in Forks.  
The world was not different.  
Even if he was alive.  
If _she_ was.

* * *

The only person truly bearing any scope of happiness at all in their party was Alice, to his side. She would be reunited with Jasper, with their family, after too many uncertainties, the phone call where she hadn't been able to promise Jasper she could return to him when she'd left for Italy. She would return to Jasper and forget that she almost thought she never would.

But Edward - glancing only barely toward his sister, without losing sight of Bella - wouldn't.


	13. As If There Were Someway He Hadn't

_**Chief Swan's House, late March 2005**_

* * *

So little time has passed here.

Even so, she's fretting and twisted up in her sheets. The scent of the room is overwhelming and ignorable in comparison to the rasping out bare half words frantically. To sitting on a half foot of the bed, and reaching out a hand, ever so tentative in case she were to jump or shake, and letting his fingers cup her cheek.

Another bad dream. She had them every night. None of the ones like Charlie remembers all too vividly for him to miss, coming to check on her nearly every night long past when she'd known he was doing so. Screaming fits in her sleep. Continuously at first. But even when he thought she was getting better, it was never all gone. Not as bad, but still constant. Even now.

When she hadn't moved much for the first minute he scooted a little closer, and brushed her hair back from her cheek and her eyes. Careful. Delicate. The pressure to touching a line in a spider web without breaking the strings, to lean down, closing his eyes against the soft, fearful whimpering and press the smallest kiss against her temple.

"Shhhh. I'm here."

Even if he's supposed to be leaving.

* * *

Which didn't stay as a thought when she turned into his hand, eyelashes flickering. Almost waking, but only searching across the blanket and curling up against him. The tiny death grip of the fingers that found his hand couldn't hold him any more than the wind, but they mean something.

The press of fingers until her knuckles are white like his skin. He reached out and traced, gently, his fingers tips over her desperate clutch. Stroking her skin until consciousness fades with the color, from white to pink to pale peach.

He did this. Took the most beautiful thing ever placed in his hands and threw it away, every second he'd imagined her healing and moving on she was here broken and bleeding, a china de Milo made only of sharp, biting shards.

* * *

Carlisle asked if he cared, as though there were some way he hadn't noticed. _Cared._  
That he'd almost killed Isabella. Left her to werewolves and Victoria and dangerous stunts.  
That Alice and Bella had literally stood on the precipice and almost died in the pit of Volterra.

That his family was hanging on by threads. He'd only need the few hours with Alice on the plane to have a reasonable view of months. Esme's grief and Carlisle's silence, Jasper's guilt and Rosalie's anger. The different trips breaking off from each other. The lack of any sensible communication, any laughter.

The fighting. The hopelessness. The repeated events that only one other could recognize in their exactness. All of it was his. His fault. He'd thought he'd made the wisest decision for the sake of all of them, at the expense of himself, but instead he'd nearly torn all of them apart in his idiocy.

He'd nearly died, and he and Alice would forever carry the flicked memories of moments and worlds where he had. Quartered and burning. The news being carried. The idea that he could not care at all. There was no way to care less. There was no way to be numb enough to not feel the gravity of every action taken, every memory that assailed him, every link in the chain he'd shackled them all to.

* * *

Guilt and loathing roiled in and out of emptiness. Forgiveness was not something he sought, or deserved. If anything his awareness of the events and consequences, made him even less inclined to agree that he was anything but a monster. And yet she still had her 'epiphany,' still she had said that nothing had or would ever change how she loved him.

Stole his entire world of ability to think with the simplest waves of breathing in and out as she finally slipped back into a deeper, calmer sleep.

All of that tangled up in the fierce anger over the subject of her being changed. To be backed up, on that being an even worse mistake to add to the pile of travesties, by only Rosalie. He could understand Esme and Alice. Even Emmett. But Carlisle, he couldn't, didn't even want to. The idea cut so deeply into everything left there.

* * *

Carlisle who was expecting him.

* * *

Edward closed his eyes, taking all of it in. The sound of her breathing in and out. The steady strum of her heart. The lazy curl of her fingers with her arm slung casually across him. The intensity of the fragility of all of this. The endless blighting weight of everything. The miracle that somehow he was here again.

Unable to crush her to him, Edward swallowed and picked up her arm, placing it gently on the blanket.  
He slipped off the side of the bed, a fast enough movement the bed didn't even shiver.

He looked at her bed table only to end up looking back at her, as she began to shift and turn, looking for something missing, now that she was bereft again. He reached out for her hand on the blanket as he realized a note really wouldn't suffice. Nothing would. He wouldn't want one left for him now either, if the reverse were possible.

* * *

His voice was soft, for her sleep and Charlie's sake, but insistent. He only had to say her name twice before she was blinking her eyes confused. He brushed the knuckles of her hand against his cheek and his lips while she focused. Changing the static of her breath, even as her heart beat skittered slightly faster.

"I need to leave for a while." He spoke against her fingers, telling himself he'd be fine.  
He'd made it through three hours, and the end wasn't as horrific as the beginning had been.

Her expression shifted through so many things. Waking up more to think, fear and uncertainty, a hesitation so fluent in all her actions that basked in the ever-present silent of her thoughts. She seemed to gather her shoulders and hold herself, even when her expression didn't clear, and he wondered how Carlisle would take being canceled on.

Her hand shifted in his. Like a bird finding life, his stilled completely to give her freedom from her cage. Her fingers uncurled to touch the side of his face. His cheek, stopping next to his eyes. Her tone was so cryptic, and patient, accepting while failing the attempt not to be sad. "I knew you'd have to eventually."

Edward's head bowed against her fingers. Pinpricks of warmth, the very source of Life in his world.

"Will you be back before morning?"

Doubtful. Even the thought felt like a stab inside of him.

"If not by then, I will call as soon as I'm back in the area."

Her hand pulled back to her blanket, and it was a struggle, locking his jaw, not to follow it. Her fingers wound into the cloth and her shoulders never unset still. He hovered on the edge of saying he'd stay, right there on that spot, as long as she needed him to. He'd done such cruelty to her, no matter the claims for how or why, and he would do anything she felt it required.

"I love you, Edward." Surprised him again, as she tugged her blanket up.  
Quiet brown eyes, in the face that had indelibly changed who he was, closing again.

Edward pushed up, half to standing and he leaned over, placing a kiss in her hair. "Forever."


End file.
